I've tried DNA several times for myself for cut and color with the owner David. He is wonderful. The color and cut are great with him. He's 5 star. The reason for my 3 star review was my daughter's experience with trying to get purple "ends" on her black hair with one of their other stylists who specializes in "fun" colors. They bleached her ends first (apparently not light enough) and put purple color in. The problem was the bleached parts weren't all colored and were showing through and the purple wasn't that vibrant. So they put more color on - pretty much same result and her hair felt really gummy. Final try was to flat iron color directly into the hair but it still wasn't fully purple over the bleached parts. It was more purple but the problem was that there was so much color left in her hair, that when we tried to wash it, it looked like a purple murder happened in our bathroom. The color (prior to washing it) was all over my daughter and we couldn't even touch her hair without purple all over us. We went back and they ended up clarifying it 8 times. So much purple came it, it was unbelievable. They say they don't know what happened. The stylist/colorist (who wasn't David, I just don't want to call her out on social media) said that has never happened to them before.
They did try to help though, by taking 50% off our bill, giving my daughter a free braid and offering to let us get it dyed back to black if we were unhappy. David and his staff really did try to help but I was just upset she never got the purple highlights she wanted (the bottom 4 inches of her hair). So, before I decided to go have it dyed back to black, I did a little research and tried another salon in Rockville. They clarified her hair once, put a special conditioning treatment on it, DID NOT bleach it anymore, but just applied color to the lightened parts and when it was all done, my daughter's hair was gorgeous! People stopped her to tell her so before we even got to the car. I spent like 6 hours at DNA the first time and another 1-2 the second time and never got to purple. I spent 2 1/2 hours at the other salon (Oxygen) and it was a flawless process and her hair is gorgeous. I just don't understand why I couldn't get that at DNA and I've been a client for awhile. I will say David is a very conscientious owner and I appreciate them trying to fix the situation, but in the end, we got our solution somewhere else. I will continue to go to David for my hair and really like him and his professionalism, but if you want "fun" colors and have black hair, I'd try somewhere else or let David do it (the reason I didn't have him do it from the start was because they suggested their fun color expert, my daughter is a tween and I didn't feel the need to pay owner prices for getting her ends "fun" for the summer. read more